African mystery! One of the great masters of the African short story, Olympe Bhêly-Quenum, opens this section with an orphic pilgrim's progress of initiation which the arch-priest of French Surrealism, André Breton, called “du rêve a l'état brut” - a remarkable compliment if one considers the prestige of the untrammelled dream among Romantics, Freudians and Surrealists. The initiation theme appears powerfully developed in Bhêly-Quenum's latest novel, L'Initié (1979), and equally in his short story, La Reine au bras d’or (“The queen with the golden arms”).
*
To André Breton to whom 1 first told this story;
to the Collège Littré in Avranches and my former
school-mates in that establishment where 1 wrote
this story; but also to the city of Avranches where
1 learnt a great deal.
O.B-Q.
When I was eleven years old, one of my uncles one day took me along with him to his farm. His name was Akpoto. He was a handsome man with large black eyes, sturdy and distinguished-looking. We had set out early, and yet the African morning sun had beaten us to it. We had covered more than thirteen kilometres on the district council road ; then we had taken the pathway that led to Houêto. A small river, fordable at any time of day, cut across the path of fine golden sand which meandered through a high and dense forest.
We had crossed the river and continued walking on sand. I loved the softness of that sandy earth; its velvety surface pleasantly caressed the soles of my bare feet. But the joy I felt in walking on that path gradually gave way to fear as we penetrated ever more deeply into the forest. When we left the path for a sodden trait, I suddenly had a feeling that the humidity pervaded my whole body, and the sense of fear became intolerable. I therefore started pestering my uncle with little questions which were as irritating as they were foolish. I kept knocking against him, clung to his hand or moved clumsily in front of him and thus almost succeeded several times in making him fall ...
We were crossing a kind of clearing where the sky above remained invisible as in most of our forests. Wehad already walked too much. For how long ? I can't say. I was not yet going to school and, naturally, did not know any French, to the utter indignation of my father, the respectable primary school teacher, who always saw me as sickly and unable to stand the hustle and bustle of a school in session. As far as my uncle was concerned, he was able to determine the time of day from the position of the sun through a special kind of sensory perception, or rather intuition. Therefore after having raised his eyes in vain towards the arches of the towering trees hiding the sky from our eyes, he said to me in his gentle voice which I can still hear:
“ Wait for me here, l'Il be back in a short while.'
He left me, plunging with big steps into the bush that stretched out as far as the eye could see. He had put a big orange and four guavas into my hands. Suddenly I felt dead tired. I was gripped by the urge to cry but controlled myself. I’ve never had much use for cry-babies. There is nothing I detest so much as giving unbridled expression to our sorrows. And I waited. Oh, I certainly waited more than I shall ever be able to wait again, but my uncle did not return. There was plenty of time for me to eat two guavas, then my orange, and then I waited again a very long time before munching my two remaining guavas.
Worn out by the anxiety brought about by seeing nothing but the bush with its frightening calm around me, I sat down on the black forest earth and buried my face in my hands as if I never wanted to see any more of the place where I was. But as the humidity caught hold of me I had to rise again and I started walking without really having any idea of where I was going. I ought to have searched for the path we had followed until then but all my senses were gripped by panic and I marched like an automaton. I wished I could have given out a single scream, whistled, sung or talked loudly, or even just muttered something - anything to assuage the effect of the fear in me, anything to make me feel aware of my person or, simply, to give me the illusion that I still was myself, a human being, alive, finding myself there by chance, but I could not say anything ... True to God, it is the only time I remember ever having felt fear.
I walked on relentlessly, unable to rediscover the path covered with sand ; neither did I see the river again, its waters rolling with a sweet music, but I suddenly noticed in front of me a big woman wrapped in a white lappa that concealed her face and covered her feet. She advanced towards me ; my heart started pounding fast ; I felt as if I were receiving heavy blows from a ram inside me that did not quite succeed in splitting my chest open. I started shouting, no, I would have liked to shout ; I felt I was shouting but did not hear myself shouting. I wished I could see the earth opening under my feet but the humus refused to do my bidding.
Only then did I concede defeat and stretched out my arms to the woman like a baby to its mother. To my surprise the woman passed me by in mute indifference. I looked back. She too had turned her head and before I had time to avert my eyes, she had already uncovered her face. I then saw something frightful : an emaciated face, the face of a fleshless skull, which made a horrid and repugnant grimace at me. I started running head over heels but glanced backwards from time to time. It was to no avail, for I constantly saw the person at a distance of twenty paces behind me, although she was not running.
But my mad gallop did not last very long, for a few moments after that encounter I found myself right in front of the railway cracks. My heart was thumping so violently that it seemed to be about to burst my chest. I looked back again and saw my uncle.
“Where have you been ? Why did you abandon me in the forest ?” I asked, staring at him in bleak reproach.
He looked at me with pity because he read the anguish in my eyes ; he told me, however, that he had not wasted any time at Houêto :
“ I ordered my farm labourers at once to catch the chickens you see here and went myself to dig out cassava tubers for your grandmother and great-aunt. As soon as the job was finished, I returned to the clearing and was greatly surprised not to find you. I then continued my return journey, looking everywhere. All of a sudden I heard a rustle in the bush to my left ; at first I thought it was a deer but I changed my mind afterwards when I saw a human shape running helter-skelter ; it was you. I could have called you but I preferred to follow you with my eyes, for we were moving along parallel lines. A single step, but a big one, separated me from you, my boy. And then, of course, I had nothing to fear for you, for the bush is not dangerous.”
I felt sad at having brought him to the point where he thought he owed me an explanation. But on the other hand, my heart was still throbbing with anger and subdued sobs when I asked him in a trembling voice whether he had seen the river again.
“Yes, of course. It was there even before our ancestors were born, and will certainly remain after we’re dead and gone.
“You may be right, but I did not re-cross it.
“ What’s that you’re telling me? You must have forded it without noticing.
“ But it’s true, uncle ! I didn’t see the slightest trace of the river ; just look at my legs and feet, they aren’t soaked like yours.
“You surprise me, Codjo!
“Let’s return to the clearing by the path that has brought me here, if you don’t believe me, I said with an assurance that today I find astounding on the part of the child I was.
My uncle tucked his baskets with the cassava and chickens in them under some undergro-wth, put me astride his shoulders and we took the path on which I had come, or rather the trail which perhaps would never have come into existence if I had not been the first human 0
being who in my terrorized gallop had savagely flattened the grass along that line. We had arrived at the clearing, then at the farm much more quickly than we could have managed by walking on the sand-covered pathway. Akpoto was dumbfounded not to be obliged to pass the river he had been crossing for more than thirty-five years, the source of which he imagined to be somewhere in the forest. He put me down. My mouth felt dry. I quenched my thirst by drinking from a gourd, and this made me feel the freshness of the water and the pleasure of drinking it more keenly. Then we set out on the return journey, taking once more the kind of game crack I had discovered and which had become the fastest way to go to Houêto and back.
“A walking skeleton, that sort of thing doesn’t exist. No dead man comes back to stay among the living ; my grandmother and great-grandfather followed one another into death at a month’s interval; nobody’s ever told me that he has met them during the three years since they stopped coddling me”.
So went my train of thought, and I was convinced that my encounter with the skeleton was merely the result of a hallucination. Still, I wanted to make sure it was only an illusion and, taking advantage of a moment when my parents’ watchfulness had flagged, I sneaked away from our compound where I was getting bored. I liked the open air, the solitude at the seaside or in the bush, and likewise the company of human beings who made no impositions on me but allowed me to make myself useful without feeling duty-bound to do so. In my parents’ house everything was offered to me on a golden platter ; I was pampered and idle and felt my uselessness to the full.
I reached the clearing again through the game-track and started searching for the source of the river. My mind was totally absorbed in the operation, perhaps because I was what my parents called “a self-willed child”, or perhaps also because I had an ulterior motive : to surprise my uncle by discovering the truth I wanted to find out. I therefore headed into the bush, slipping over pebbles, sinking into the spongy suction of the soft ground ; skipping over creepers, crawling among thorns. In front of me appeared a big chameleon. We looked at each other for a good second and its skin visibly, and gradually, took on the colour of the indigo cloth tied around my neck, which I was wearing over my khaki shorts. At that moment I thought of my revered great-grandfather who in telling tales did not hide his predilection for the chameleon: “It rarely misses its destination because it knows how to adjust itself to its surroundings and never looks back.”
What did that mean ? I hadn’t the slightest idea. I was a spoilt, demanding child whom a too-indulgent great-grandfather had perhaps wanted to convert to patience and gentleness by lectures on moral philosophy. But he had reasoned through the use of symbols which remained a mystery to the child. Still, it was that venerable old man that I thought of that day, and seeing the chameleon take on the colour of my cloth, I not only decided not to look back but also to adapt myself to the bush, to understand its language, to bow to its laws, without, however, forgetting that I was a human being, the only creature who would not be forgiven voluntary subservience. I was born to grow big and to live even beyond death ...
A small noise startled me ; I did not pay any heed and continued making my way through the thorns that tore my cloth. A long snake carelessly passed between my legs, a boa rolled itself around a tree towards which I was heading. I was unafraid, beyond caring. My only concern was to discover the source of the river. I had met the chameleon that perhaps still retained the colour of my garment in memory of our chance encounter or had swapped it for that of some of the distinctly green or red leaves I remembered seeing.
From among creepers and thorns I emerged into another clearing. In its immobility, the canopy of leaves above my head sealed off the place in tragic solitude. I felt the void within me as if I were nothing thenceforth but a wretched carcase draped with black skin. At that moment, the skeleton appeared a few steps away from me, wrapped in its big white lappa which covered its head. I felt no emotion, or more precisely, I was not afraid since I considered it as something I was used to. Still, I rubbed my eyes as if to rid myself of an optical illusion, to make sure of what I was seeing. It drew closer ; I did not rush towards it as in our first encounter, for I had to preserve my dignity. In my view, it represented nothing. It was nothingness in motion, and I was a man. This certainty, due to the realization of the difference between us, fortified me not with courage - that I didn’t care about - but with cockiness, and I saw my body rising to its level.
This was not the time for any more concessions. I felt that the bush was not supposed to be the abode of the dead but of the living. Wasn’t I one of them ? We converged as on a one-way crack where no provision has been made for people to pass one another. I did nothing to let it pass when we were face to face. Then it stretched out its hand to me. At that moment I would have liked to cross my arms, to sport a scornful countenance since last time it too had snubbed me ; but I decided to let bygones be bygones and gathered its bony hand in mine. Instead of forcing me to retrace my steps it did the opposite, still holding my hand. I thus followed it, eager to discover where it was taking me.
We wended our way side by side without my feeling the slightest apprehension. After all, what was there to be afraid of ? Holding in my hand the hand of a human skeleton ? Human. That was just the word I needed. Was I not with something human ? Was I not sure now that my first encounter was not simply the effect of a delusion ? No, really, I was no longer afraid. I was eight years old when my grandmother and great-grandfather stopped 0
living. I remember having cried a great deal by their bodies, seated beside the mortal remains of these old people in their barely gnarled height during my vigil, despite my parents’ vain efforts to spare me what they called too violent shocks. Yes, I still remember: I hurled myself on my grandmother when they wanted to put her in the coffin ; I took her hand and squeezed it very hard so as to communicate all my warmth to her. O the piercing coldness she left in my hands and which is still there, evermore! It was her chat I frit again ail along, while the skeleton kept my hand in its own. It did not hold it in a tight grip, did not apply any pressure, and we just wandered along like two friends.
Still, I did not forget that I was a man, a human being, a child barely twelve years old, while it was a skeleton. Had it been a man or a woman ? I never found out. Besides, this was of no importance. With wide open eyes I stared at the bush in front of me. Not a single time did it occur to me to have to look at my fellow-traveler. And why should I have looked at its skeletal visage since I was feeling its hand in mine? Had it suddenly vanished I would most assuredly not have worried about its disappearance but would have continued on my way amidst the trees, the thorns and the beasts. But I have to admit today that I had realized that from the moment we walked together the thorns no longer tore my cloth ; everything slipped smoothly off me as it did off the skeleton.
A wild boar and his mate emerging from their lair took to flight on seeing us. My uncle had told me that the bush was not dangerous ; all the same, we saw more than one pair of lions and panthers, but they had passed us by with something approaching indifference. To be precise, they had invariably passed on my side ; they had all sniffed at me and then walked away in haughty grandeur. Why ? I wouldn’t know. I may have appeared vile-smelling and undesirable to them, unless they just happened not to be hungry just then. We had been walking like that for a time that seemed reasonably long to me but I was not tired. I did not feel the slightest fatigue. I paid attention to everything.
Then, to my great surprise, I stopped seeing the bush around me and realized that we were in an underground tunnel hung with tree-roots. The walls were oozing moisture but the ground was dry. The ear perceived the gentle, distant murmur of a stream. I thought of the river while striding along with my strange companion. At certain places the walls of the long gallery through which we were proceeding had been discreetly adorned with symbolic graffiti : snakes biting their own tails ; arms cut off and placed on top of each other in the form of an X ; sexual organs ; copulation scenes ; shin-bones ; human skulls ; horses without heads but galloping at full speed, tails and manes flying in the wind ; fire shaped like an open lily blossom flaring from a pit; coffins; people performing a ritual dance; a clumsily drawn rectangle representing a mirror.
We turned to the left and I had the impression that we were changing our direction from north to sunrise. A light entering the place from heaven knows where gently lit up the underground passage sloping downwards in front of me. We walked unceasingly, descending the slope, and arrived at a kind of crypt where human skeletons without the tiniest bone missing were stretched out side by side. My guide stopped in front of one of them, uncovering his cavity-riddled face. I looked straight at him. He bowed slightly to one of the skeletons which sat up, crossed its legs, then its arms; he continued his homage and each one of his fellow-skeletons took the same posture as the preceding one. And I saw seventy-seven skeletons thus sitting up and leaning their backs against the wall of the crypt. Did they want to impress me? I had experienced fear before, but fear held no more meaning for me. I had heard people talk a lot about death, but since the death of my grandparents I no longer feared it. Death had become for me such a familiar companion that I gave it no more thought. But looking at the skeletons attentively, I had a feeling that each one of them represented a human being I had known, and to which I had perhaps been close. It was good to see them again but I had not come here for them.
“Where is the source of the river ?” I suddenly cried in a tragic voice which struck the walls in a zigzag line, provoking a long and sonorous echo. And again I heard murmurings of the water, then a groan followed by the sound of a torrent rushing away.
The skulls all seemed to have been raised again to look me straight in the face.
“You see that I have come to visit you without misgivings. I’m not afraid of you because you used to be men ; for me you still are and I don’t believe in death!”
I heard my voice re-echo. It ricocheted away from me along the underground passage.
“Why don’t you answer? Should you really be so useless ? ”
All I received for an answer was my own voice and its echo which garbled any utterance.
“You hear me ? ”
“You hear me ? ”
“ - ear me ? ”
“ - me ? ”
“ - e ? ”
“ Why did you bring me here ? ”
“- bring me here ? ”
“- me here ? ”
“- ere ? ”
I looked around me and noticed that my guide had disappeared; maybe he had quietly slipped back to his little niche among his peers. So I thought of setting out on my return journey but as the passage stretched out farther before me, I preferred not to retrace my steps; so 1 moved forward. Thus I continued marching at a normal walking pace, looking all the while at the walls covered with graffiti fraught with symbolism. Despite my casual and almost leisurely gait I was feeling tired. I lacer realized that the way was sloping upwards. Moreover, the certainty that I was advancing towards the sun became more and more acute.
As if in a fog I saw a shadow passing before my eyes; then the shadow became a reality : a majestic skeleton without any clothes on, his right hand clutched to his heart and his left holding a shin-bone with a skull on top. I stopped short in front of him. He made to let me pass and the moment I was going to continue on my way he slightly stroked my head with the skull resting on the shin-bone. I did not react, did not look back. The light entering the cavern was becoming more and more intense, I breathed in the air charged with a thousand smells from the fields ... Abruptly I felt myself carried off into a long sleep and saw myself in a place, the name of which someone seemed to murmur into my ear: “ Wassaï.”
O Wassaï ! Wassaï ! Disturbing, exciting paradise of entwined bodies! Here was a pathway divided into five branches, each leading to clearly defined places. On one side of the main path stood a hedge of hibiscus, bougainvillea and Campeachy separating the path from a vast area planted with kola-nut trees dwarfed by iroko and silk-cotton trees. In the hollows of those giant trees nested night birds; their lugubrious shrieks did not frighten me. Wisps of white smoke rose from the foot of the trees. Little did I tare about their origin and meaning! Let the sorcerers abandon themselves to their orgies, let them devour the souls of their victims. I was in Wassaï !
On the other side of the road was Wassaï, little house of joy without a keeper.
I entered. Ravishing young beauties with sturdy breasts, black skin, athletic bodies. And their nimble legs with prettily proportioned muscles, readily intertwining, pushed me gently into voluptuous depths. At Wassaï I experienced unforgettable little tremors brought about by girls I did not know, their names have remained unspoken, I’ve forgotten their seductive faces ; the form of their lithe and supple bodies remains in my arms, the freshness of their jet-black skin still vibrates through my nerves. In their midst I underwent my sexual initiation till all the flowers of the world blossomed within me, till the hard egg whose unwonted presence I had felt deep within was hatched.
No outburst of rebellions sex will ever surprise me. I have explored all its domains in Wassaï, fearsome black flower slowly unfolding in the deep nights of a dwelling without a master.
When I came to myself, I went my way without slowing down my pace and thus I came out into the open air. Let it be said in passing that I did not for a single moment feel like a prisoner in that underground gallery. But instead of finding myself on even ground, at the edge of the forest as I expected, perhaps because I had scented the wind and the sun, I realized that I was perched high up on a mountainside studded with shrubbery. A little further down, beneath my feet, a spring gushing out from this imposing height I had not known before, flowed into the plain before me with a murmur. And the glittering reflections of lights, a vast imaginary ocean, seemed to undulate on the surface of the stream. I climbed on all fours up to the summit, stood erect and saw the top of the forest covering the villages all around. Far away thin columns of smoke rose above the trees.
Coming from another world I discovered the immensity of space above the earth ; then I went down from the mountain as if gently impelled and held back at the same time by a protecting hand. I had not succeeded in seeing what I was searching for: the source of the river. Disappointed, I had to rest content with following the stream which flowed into a natural canal, the banks of which were hemmed in by aquatic plants; and I saw the river again which here to my great surprise almost flowed alongside the railway line. My cloth was in shreds. I followed the railway line and then the usual path to town.
I arrived there at nightfall. In front of the door of my parents’ house I was stunned to see on either side an earthenware pot containing a decoction such as our customs prescribe for funeral ceremonies; I also heard a dirge gently syncopated by calabash rattles. I entered and saw a gathering of sad people. The women, including my mother, had untied their hair as a token of mourning. The people gathered there noticed my presence and started up. Some took to their heels, others, paralysed by fear, just looked at me. I stepped forward to my mother who had been quickly joined by my father.
“ What has happened? Who has died ? ”
Dead silence.
“You have to forgive me for leaving without telling you about it.”
“ Where have you come from ? Are you dead or are you a living person in our midst ? ” my father asked.
“ I’m alive.”
“ What, alive ? ” my mother said, weeping.
“ Nobody’s dead. Death doesn’t exist and if it does, no dead man will ever return ”, I replied firmly, but with my most casual expression.
The people had come back, more numerous now than when I had first set foot in the house.
“ Where have you come from ? ”
“ Where've you been ? ”
“ We thought you were dead.”
“ For the past three days we’ve been sure about it.”
“ The diviners have confirmed it.”
I was somewhat depressed by these comments and asked if the funeral ceremonies had anything to do with me. They said yes.
“ The diviners have all been telling you lies. I went for a walk, and I’ve come back with flesh and blood, body and soul, cured from the fear of death. I apologise for having given you so much worry.”
“ My son, tell me honestly where you have come from ”, my father said.
“Just from a walk. I didn’t realize that it lasted three days.”
“ What did you eat ? ” asked my mother.
“ Nothing.”
“ Who did you stay with ? ”
“ Nobody.”
“ I don’t understand you.”
“ I’ve nothing to explain.”
“ Why ? ”
“ Such things can’t be explained. I am alive and life goes on.”
“ Oh, this child !” my mother murmured.
“ I’m hungry, mother. You can see I’m alive and kicking since I’m hungry and thirsty.”
“ May you never again disappear like that ! ”
“ I promise, but don’t ever ask me for an explanation ”, I said.
And everything was all right again. How long did this dream last ? I shall never know.
© Copyright by Olympe BHÊLY-QUENUM.
